Rapid Integration

Apple’s iPad has made tablet computing a reality, easy and cool. The list of touch-screen tablets is constantly evolving and growing, i.e. Apple iPad, Samsung Galaxy Tab, BlackBerry Playbook, etc.

Not only have they become the must gadget to have, there’s a good collection of useful applications that are making life easier for both physicians and patients. Knowledge Networks reported in March 2011 that 27% of physicians in the United States had a tablet-style computer which is about 5 times the general public’s adoption rate.

This rapid adoption rate by physicians requires for healthcare IT professionals to be able to integrate these devices rapidly with their enterprise IT landscape. Long gone are the days where corporate infrastructure groups could take years before allowing new platforms into the enterprise. For instance, in 2006 a Fortune 100 company initially only allowed RIM’s BlackBerry mobile devices onto their corporate platform. As the iPhone grew in popularity, and apps, more employees and executives begin requesting to have the iPhone as part of the IT enterprise. Almost 4 years later, the infrastructure group finally granted approval to allow Apple’s iPhone and OS as part of the IT enterprise landscape. The problem is that Google’s Android mobile devices are now growing at an outlandish rate, so as you would probably guess, a significant amount of employees, and executives, are now clamoring to have Android devices approved. So not only is the company playing catch up with developing and integrating Apple OS apps with enterprise applications, they are also behind with Android development and integration.

In a healthcare IT setting, this slow speed of integration could very well be life or death for a patient. Particularly in the case of physicians in remote areas, where a significant amount of mobile apps have been developed to assist with providing more efficient and timely care. The bottom line, tablets and similar mobile devices have enough processing power to rival that of desktop computers. Because of open development, new apps are literally released everyday and are being developed to do what was once unimaginable. The impact and benefit of apps, and the high rate of adoption of tablet devices by physicians, requires healthcare IT organizations to make streamlining and integrating these new mobile technologies at a much more rapid pace than most other industries a top priority..